Recently, operation manuals that include operation procedures of various information processing apparatuses have been increasingly supplied to users as electronic data, such as electronic files, via networks, such as from web sites. The manuals may be acquired by users considering purchasing the information processing apparatuses as well as those having purchased the information processing apparatuses. When the manuals are supplied as electronic data, the users considering purchasing the information processing apparatuses can acquire the electronic data more easily than when the manuals are supplied in a printed form. Allowing users to acquire the manuals more easily, advantageously brings acceleration of sales of the information processing apparatuses to dealers of the information processing apparatuses.
Some information processing apparatuses operate in accordance with control operations performed by users in external apparatuses. Additionally, emulation programs emulating operations of such information processing apparatuses may be supplied to users. Even if users' terminal devices are not connected to the information processing apparatuses, the users can simulatively experience operations for controlling the information processing apparatuses by having the terminal devices execute the emulation programs.
A telephone exchange debugging system is one example of technique for simulating operations of electronic devices. The telephone exchange debugging system sends pseudo call data to an actual telephone exchange in accordance with a test procedure specification, thereby simulatively testing whether an error occurs in operations of the telephone exchange after an environmental change.
A method for generating input/output stubs on the basis of a hardware interface specification, a software specification, and an input/output-stub-command generation rule is one example of technique for generating input/output stubs simulating linked operations of hardware and software.
Related arts are disclosed in Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2000-354263 and Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 6-131215.
Information processing apparatuses, such as server, that operate in accordance with user operations performed in external apparatuses tend to have complicated operation procedures. In such a case, users unfortunately have difficulty understanding the operation procedures of the information processing apparatuses with reference to manuals that include the operation procedures of the information processing apparatuses.
In contrast, utilization of emulation programs emulating the operation procedures of the information processing apparatuses allow the users to easily understand the operation procedures of the information processing apparatuses. However, creating emulation programs for information processing apparatuses having complicated operation procedures unfortunately involves a vast amount of work and a high cost.